Lane left home at the age of 15, and was married four years later. He moved to Evansville, Indiana in 1820.[2] Lane and his wife, Polly Hart Lane, had ten children.[3]

Lane was largely self-educated, learning about the world from books which he read at night.[2] During the daytime he worked and saved his money, investing it shortly in the purchase of a flatboat, with which he transported freight up and down the Ohio River.[2] Financial success followed.[2]

Lane was an eloquent public speaker, a talent which helped him to win election to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1822 at the age of just 21.[2] He served in that body from 1822 to 1823, from 1830 to 1833, and from 1838 to 1839.[4] He then moved to the Indiana State Senate, where he served from 1839 to 1840 and from 1844 to 1846.[4] Widely esteemed by his peers, Lane was likewise elected as a captain of his local militia while still a young man.[2]

In 1846 the Mexican–American War broke.[1] Lane resigned his State Senate seat, and enlisted in a company of Indiana volunteers.[1] His company was assigned to the 2nd Indiana Volunteer Regiment, and Lane was elected colonel in June 1846. He was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers less than a week later.[1]

Lane and the Indiana troops were then deployed to Mexico, where Lane fought with distinction, suffering two minor gunshot wounds, and was brevetted to major general in 1847.[1] Lane commanded the Indiana Brigade at the Battle of Buena Vista, where he served under General and future President Zachary Taylor.[1]

As soon as Lane returned from Mexico, President Polk appointed him governor of Oregon Territory. Lane received his commission on August 18, 1848.[1] Lane arrived in Oregon on March 3, 1849, following a hazardous winter trip on the Oregon Trail.[1] Upon reaching Oregon City, Lane's first official act was to initiate the first census of the territory's residents, which showed a total of 8,785 American citizens and 298 citizens of other countries.[1]

While Governor, Lane also served as the first Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs.[1]

Also among Lane's early duties was the apprehension of five Cayuse Indians accused in the Whitman Massacre. The accused were brought back to Oregon City for trial, where they were convicted and hanged.[5]

Lane resigned as territorial governor on June 18, 1850, in favor of a new appointee.[1] On June 2, 1851, Lane was elected Oregon Territory's Delegate in Congress as a Democrat.[1] In May 1853, Lane was acting Territorial Governor for three days to assist in the removal of the unpopular John P. Gaines from office. Lane then ran for re-election as Delegate, winning election on June 6, 1853.[1] Lane won two more terms of office as Delegate in the June elections of 1855 and 1857.[1] He was subsequently elected as one of Oregon's first two United States Senators when Oregon became a state in 1859.

In 1853, after he was re-elected as Delegate in 1853, but before he left for Washington, D.C., Lane was appointed as brigadier general commanding a force of volunteers raised to suppress recent Native American violence. Lane led the force to southern Oregon to stop Native American attacks against settlers and miners there.[1] Lane was again wounded in a skirmish at Table Rock, in Sams Valley, not far from today's cities of Medford and Central Point.[1]

This "Southern Democrat" ticket was defeated. With his defeat for vice president and the beginning of the Civil War, Lane's political career ended. His pro-slavery views had been controversial in Oregon; his pro-secessionist views were wholly unacceptable.[5] Lane became notorious for an exchange with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee on his last day in the Senate. Johnson had spoken in favor of the Union and denounced secession. A referendum on secession in Tennessee failed shortly thereafter, generally credited to Johnson's speech. On March 2, Lane accused Johnson of having "sold his birthright" as a Southerner. Johnson responded by suggesting that Lane was a hypocrite for so accusing Johnson when Lane so staunchly supported a movement of active treason against the United States.[6]

Lane had taken a land claim of 1 square mile (2.6 km2) located just north of Roseburg, Oregon, in 1851.[1] He later purchased a 2,000-acre (810 ha) ranch located about 11 miles (18 km) east of that town, which he owned for a number of years before selling to a son.[1] Lane also constructed a home overlooking the South Umpqua River; after his Senate term, he retired there in 1861.[1] Although openly sympathetic to the Southern rebellion in the Civil War, Lane remained home on his ranch and did not participate in the fighting, nor did he make a return to politics after that date.[1] Lane has been accused of keeping a personal slave as late as 1878, an assumption based on the race of the African-Indian orphan he raised from the age of two to seventeen.[7]
Lane was baptized as a Roman Catholic in 1867,[8] but renounced that faith before his death.[9]

General Lane's daughter's home in Roseburg, where he spent much of his time, is now a museum maintained by the Douglas County Historical Society.[10] Known as the Creed Floed House, the Floed–Lane House, or simply the Joseph Lane House, it is on the National Register of Historic Places.[11] The Floed-Lane House was never his dwelling place.[10]

Lane County, Oregon, is named for Lane.[12] Joseph Lane Middle School in Roseburg is named for him, as is Joseph Lane Middle School in Portland.